Is Wall Construction at the National Butterfly Center About to Begin?

On Sunday, the National Butterfly Center alerted Facebook users to some alarming news: Earlier that day, construction equipment and eight local law enforcement units materialized at the 100-acre sanctuary in Mission, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Last year, Congress approved funding to build new border-wall sections atop a levee that runs through the center, which protects habitat for hundreds of butterfly species as well as birds and other wildlife. An officer told center staff that “effective Monday morning, [the center’s land south of the levee] is all government land,” according to the post, suggesting that plans to construct the new wall sections continue. (These wall plans are separate from President Trump’s larger proposed wall project that is still being negotiated.)

If construction is imminent, the staff of the National Butterfly Center have not been informed. Jeffrey Glassberg, president of the center, confirmed to Audubon that heavy yellow machinery—an excavator, specifically—appeared on the property on Sunday. He also says that there is a heightened presence of local Mission police, who express the view that this is a land seizure.